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Thursday, 30 June 2016

Court Strikes Out Suit Challenging Buhari’s School Certificate as Lawyer Withdraws Suit Over Alleged Threat to His Life

The Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, has, struck out a suit challenging the veracity of the academic credentials of President Muhammadu Buhari. Justice Adeniyi Ademola held that by “section 50(2) of the federal high court civil procedure rules the matter is hereby struck out”.

The plaintiff, a legal practitioner, Nnamdi Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe, filed a notice at the court to discontinue the suit. Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe had alleged that Buhari was not qualified to aspire for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because he did not sit for the Cambridge West African School Certificate, WASC, in 1961 as he claimed.

The notice of discontinuance dated June 27 read: “Take note that the plaintiff in this originating summons, Nnamdi Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe, hereby discontinues this action.”

‎In an interview with THISDAY last month, Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe had alleged that there were some subtle threats on him to withdraw the case from court.

He had said: Of course, I am concerned and my family and friends are too; I am not naïve and some subtle threats have already been made. For now it is small comfort that if anything happens to me, even if disguised as an accident or anything, Nigerians will know exactly who is responsible.

“In any case, it was Professor Wole Soyinka, I think, who once said in one of his books that ‘The Man Dies in Him Who Keeps Quiet in The Face of Tyranny’ or something of the sort. Speaking of which, I am amazed at the conspiracy of silence by Nigerians. It is astounding is it not, that in the light of this very apparent rape of our constitution, laws, indeed the very essence of our democracy, all of our civil society advocates and activists have gone deaf and dumb in the face of tyranny.

“All those voluble persons (and I don’t want to name them; they know themselves and Nigerians know them too), who pretend they are activists or keepers of the moral conscience of the nation astonishingly can’t see or appreciate what is happening. This country really misses Chief Gani Fawehinmi; he was the only fearless, credible, true and genuine conscience of the nation, not the pretenders we have today; all the others only make noise when it suits them and their interests but look the other way once they are compromised. None of us today, can tie Gani’s shoe-laces.”